Where Ellen Gerstein ponders publishing, marketing, social networking, life as a working soccer mom and more

About Ellen Gerstein

I’m the director of Marketing at a large, not-quite-in-NYC publishing house, where I work on books about technology. I’m also the mother of 2 great kids, IT Boy and Soccer Girl (my mini-me daughter). I have a husband too (that would be Mr. IT), but he doesn’t like being blogged about. He’s kind of a luddite. Opposites do attract, you know. My hobbies include those of any other typical 15 year old boy, except for the part about my not being a 15 year old boy…gadgets, downloadable music, reading (esp. SF), sports of all kinds (watching baseball, hockey and football; coaching soccer; playing tennis). My daughter plays soccer during every waking minute, it seems, so I am truly a “soccer mom”. My ultimate goal is to spend more of my precious free time reading books that have nothing to do with technology, preferably on a bright and sunny palm tree-lined beach (pina colada optional). Some people know me as Ellen Reavis, some as Ellen Reavis Gerstein. Either way, that and $2 gets me on the subway every time.

I am currently recovering from a kick where I was naming blog entries after songs by The Smiths. It’s better now, but I cannot promise it won’t happen again.

I like your blog. I found it because I’m researching connecting with publishing people on LinkedIn. Frankly, I’m hoping to connect with more people that can steer me towards more and steadier freelance book design and layout work. Or at least towards some ideas as to how to get a more reliable “in” to publishers.

But in reading your entry “Math Doesn’t Suck”–I happen to love typesetting math, actually cut my teeth proofreading such, and have done layout on a number of heavy-duty math texts–I realized I’d like to ask you to take a look at my blog at http://www.tianodesign.com/blog and perhaps exchange links to each other’s blog.

You left a comment at my blog, http://www.goodgrape.com the other week. Not sure if you were aware, but my wife, Lindsay, is an AE on the consumer Dummies team. She read the post and said, “Hey, Ellen works at Wiley.”

If coincidence, pretty cool. If not, then still pretty cool. And, of course, thank you for checking out my blog. Anytime you want to drop some pearls of wisdom, I would love it.

I’m a soccer dad, a baseball dad, a basketball dad. I used to be a hockey dad but seasons conflict and the ice here in CA stinks! Oh yeah, I coach all these teams, too. Don’t have a BMW or a MBZ… I proudly drive my Dad-van, even to client and biz dev meetings. No facade, just a real guy who loves his family. Sounds like I have a counterpart on the right coast.

I actually truly like anything you publish here. Particularly insightful plus intelligent. One dilemma however. I’m operating Chrome by using Debian plus parts within your current design types absolutely are a minimal wonky. I actually realize it’s not much of a popular put in place. However it’s a little something so that you can preserve in mind. I actually hope not wearing running shoes will certainly enable plus continue to keep up the major level of quality crafting.

Between me and my husband we’ve owned more MP3 players over the years than I can count, including Sansas, iRivers, iPods (classic & touch), the Ibiza Rhapsody, etc. But, the last few years I’ve settled down to one line of players. Why? Because I was happy to discover how well-designed and fun to use the underappreciated (and widely mocked) Zunes are.

This is getting a bit more subjective, but I much prefer the Zune Marketplace. The interface is colorful, has more flair, and some cool features like ‘Mixview’ that let you quickly see related albums, songs, or other users related to what you’re listening to. Clicking on one of those will center on that item, and another set of “neighbors” will come into view, allowing you to navigate around exploring by similar artists, songs, or users. Speaking of users, the Zune “Social” is also great fun, letting you find others with shared tastes and becoming friends with them. You then can listen to a playlist created based on an amalgamation of what all your friends are listening to, which is also enjoyable. Those concerned with privacy will be relieved to know you can prevent the public from seeing your personal listening habits if you so choose.

I tend not to write many remarks, but i did some searching and wound up here About Ellen Gerstein | ConfessionsOfAnITGirl.
com. And I actually do have 2 questions for you if you usually do not mind.
Could it be simply me or does it look as if like a few of the comments look like written
by brain dead folks? 😛 And, if you are writing at additional
online social sites, I’d like to keep up with everything fresh you have to post. Would you list of the complete urls of all your community sites like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?

Nice post. I was checking continuously this weblog and I’m impressed!
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Thanks and good luck.

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